2022 | 15 m | United States | Written and Directed by Ida Anita del Mundo
Starring: Mara Lopez, Miguel Braganza, Chris Paul Morales, Olivia White
Followed by a Talkback with Never Forget writer/director Ida del Mundo and actors Mara Lopez and Chris Paul Morales
Date: Friday, October 20, 2023
Venue: NYU King Juan Carlos Center | 53 Washington Sq S, NYC 10012
Free and open to the public.
RSVP Link: http://bit.ly/panawin2023f
Synopsis
Vera (Mara Lopez), a 33-year-old Filipino American born and raised in New York, deals with her estranged father, Pablo (Miguel Braganza), who has advancing dementia. She hires Jhason (Chris Paul Morales), an undocumented Filipino nurse who is new in the city, but soon realizes that Jhason is not just who he says he is and that her father has a secret that he has been trying all his life to keep – and now, finally, to forget. It is a secret that makes Vera question everything she knows about herself.
Director’s Statement
“Never Forget is my first venture into the Filipino-American struggle with memory and identity against the backdrop of a painful and controversial part of Philippine history. Exploring these themes is important not just on a personal level; in the broader sense it addresses our struggle to understand who we are, both because of where we were born and how we were raised. As a director, this is just the beginning of more projects in an industry where representation matters, and having a female, Filipino-American, Asian voice telling significant and unique stories of history, memory, and identity, is becoming more and more important.”
Notes on the Film
Never Forget attempts to tackle a number of interlaying themes, within its concentrated time of 15 minutes, concerning self-identity, human rights and accountability, and forgetting and remembering.
As a Filipino American born in Iowa City, growing up In Iowa then the Philippines, and now working in both New York and Manila, she has had to continually reassess and explore her identity based not just on her own personal experiences but also on the collective experiences of her multi-heritages.
Never Forget, in the same vein as that of Lav Diaz’s epic Batang West Side, notes that immigrants bring not only their cultural heritage like language or songs or folk dances, but also their histories and the traumas that they have to work through even in places and times removed from such sources. Never Forget posits that trauma can inform generations, and in this case, generations of the Philippine diaspora. Beyond this, the film hints at avenues for healing, not by denial but by remembering as an initial step.
One of the seeds of Never Forget latched on to del Mundo when, as a journalist, she joined a media tour in 2016 of Escalante, a town in the Visayan province of Negros Occidental. There she witnessed the annual re-enactment of the Escalante massacre, one of the many massacres that occurred during the Marcos dictatorship. The bloodbath happened on September 20, 1985, when a rally was held to protest the continuing dictatorship on the 13th anniversary of the Martial Law declaration, and more broadly the alarmingly grave malnutrition of the children of sugar plantation workers in the once-thriving plantations that had collapsed due to mismanagement, exacerbated by international economic forces. At a time when the government often tagged legitimate and peaceful protest or dissent as rebellion, government paramilitary forces opened fire on the civilians holding the rally, leaving at least 20 dead and dozens wounded. The Escalante townspeople have since re-enacted the massacre annually on its anniversary to honor the dead and continue demanding accountability.
Never Forget includes a sequence set in New York’s 9/11 Memorial. As 9/11 is one of America’s “Never Forget” trauma, Martial Law and its aftermath is the Philippines’ “Never Forget”–this is not only for the survivors but even for the deniers consciously and cynically revisioning history. Del Mundo also includes other repositories of memory in the film, in the pile of dusty boxes of Fil-American Vera’s father, Pablo, and in the library where she works.
Never Forget continues del Mundo’s work of cultural remembrance that she started with her debut feature K’na, the Dreamweaver, also starring Never Forget lead Mara Lopez; and this time, as it plays itself in the lives and consciousness of the Philippine diaspora.
Notes on the Director
Ida Anita del Mundo is a writer, filmmaker, and musician. (She is a former violinist at the Manila Symphony Orchestra.) Her first film K’na, the Dreamweaver. premiered at the 2014 Cinemalaya Film Festival where it received the Special Jury Prize. It won Best of Show at the 2015 Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto, Canada, and has been screened around the world, including London where it was selected as the Opening Gala film of the Native Spirit Film Festival. K’na is the first feature film about the T’boli people of South Cotabato, Mindanao, and the first film in the T’boli language. Her short film Anna, Greta, Sophie and the Rainforest won Best Short at the 2023 Films for the Forest international film festival in Austin, Texas.
Ida was born in Iowa City where she spent her primary school years. She moved to the Philippines with her parents, Dreena, a school principal, and Clodualdo, an acclaimed filmmaker and screenwriter (Manila: In the Claws of Light, among others). She has an AB in Literature and MFA in Creative Writing from De La Salle University-Manila. She recently graduated with a Masters in Directing at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
– Gil Quito, Curator
Awards
- Cinemalaya – Official Selection (Exhibition)
- School of Visual Arts Apple Box Film Festival – Best Screenplay
- International Film Festival Manhattan – Best Ensemble
- Toronto Shorts International Film Festival – Official Selection
- FACINE International Film Festival – Silver Performance in a Lead Role (Mara Lopez)
